Quos Amor Verus Tenuit
by Frost Deejn
Summary: From the moment Peter Bishop disappeared in front of her eyes, Olivia Dunham has been looking for a way to find him and bring him back. She's halfway there.
1. En Passant

Disclaimer: I have no intellectual rights over _Fringe._

Author's note: I tried to give this new universe a chance, but I can't deny it anymore: I want the old _Fringe_ back.

Chapter 1: En Passant

Sakanoe Korenori, _Shinkokinshu _997, trans. Edward Seidensticker:

O broom tree of Fuseya in Sonohara,  
>You seem to be there, and yet I cannot find you.<p>

He still wasn't sure why she had invited him to play chess. It was like the game was part of the negotiation, the first power play, the first forced concession. Though she had said it was to avoid drawing attention.

They were playing in a park. Avoiding attention was something he had become good at. It was necessary for someone who wanted to observe without changing that which was observed.

"Black or white?" she asked.

"Which do you prefer?" he inquired in his ponderous voice.

"Black."

They set up the board in accordance. Two pawns on a giant game board maneuvering pawns on a smaller game board.

"I still don't see how this is...useful," he stated.

"You're the one with all the time in the world."

He looked at her. Her hair was dark brown, long, and straight. Strangely lusterless, like a wig, but not something the average human would note as unusual. Her eyes were wide and dark, with a strange brightness to them, an eerie subliminal light that, once again, humans wouldn't notice unless they knew what to look for. Her clothes consisted of a purple blouse and blue jeans.

They could pass far more easily than his kind. He envied that. Whenever he had dealings with them he felt an unpleasant sensation, something he was certain came close to the emotion humans called loathing.

But when they made threats, they did not make empty threats.

"The opening move is yours," she reminded him.

He glanced at the board and moved a pawn out from in front of his left knight.

She quickly moved the pawn in front of her king two spaces forward. "I'm sure you have some idea why we asked for this meeting," she said.

He moved out another pawn, and didn't answer.

"You tried to erase Peter Bishop from spacetime. It was not very nice of you." She brought out a knight.

He wouldn't mention the choice not to erase him completely. Dissension within the ranks was not something one revealed to the enemy. "Peter Bishop was an anomaly, his existence a paradox."

"A paradox you couldn't undo by erasing what you had done. Had he not existed, nor would have the machine, the key to fixing the damage his existence had led to."

"It was inevitable. A lesser paradox."

"It was impossible," she said sharply. "He was indelible."

"We had not known that."

"He was ours, and you _did_ know that. He's a _perfect _candidate, and you tried to take him away from us."

He looked at her. When the decision had been made to erase Peter Bishop from spacetime, they had not considered that possibility. They could see all possible futures, but not all extant dimensions. Her kind did not move in the same directions as his. They could not see the future. They were bound by the temporal event horizon. But the universes were far clearer to her than to him, and the intricacies between them easier to navigate.

"It is unfortunate for all that events have unfolded as they have," he noted.

"It's not like we don't have other options," she said, bringing out her queen.

"What are the options to which you refer?"

"Restore him to where he belongs," she said cryptically. "You will never recover the reality that was lost when Dr. Bishop noticed a strange man in his lab instead of the compound that would have cured his son, but two paths can lead to the same destination."

He stared at her. What she was proposing would involve interfering. In fact, a great deal of it. Which was against everything.

But exactly what her kind did.

"The choice you made to save the boy from Reiden Lake, a choice which, as we have seen, had profound effects on both his worlds, was done to try to prevent a disaster that would have ensued because of that one little slip," she said. "But it was the right thing to do."

"His timeline was resulting in the end of both worlds. If he were restored to it as it was, that destruction would be all but certain."

"Deal," she said so quickly that for a moment he wasn't sure he hadn't posed that as a suggestion.

It was unsurprising that to them the destruction of two worlds would be an acceptable exchange for the gain of Peter Bishop. To _them_ the greater good was meaningless. Balance was meaningless. They served different ends, and used different means. The Observers avoided meddling with events as they unfolded in the timeline, and tried to smooth it out whenever they were compelled to. These, though, they meddled.

But if what she was proposing came to pass, the two universes from which Peter Bishop would be removed would then be allowed to proceed as if he had not existed. The imbalance in one timeline would improve the balance of another.

And all it would cost was the eventual destruction of two worlds.

"He has already been undone. He would need to be...restored."

"Leave that to me," she said. Her queen moved to a seemingly randomly selected square in a corner of the board.

He moved a pawn to take one of hers. "How would it be done?"

"Olivia Dunham."

"And I'm sure it has not escaped the scope of your knowledge that by doing so she will also become yours."

The woman smiled slyly. "What makes you think she isn't ours already?" Her queen took the pawn in front of his king's bishop. Her knight had already been maneuvered to protect the queen from his king. "Checkmate." She looked at him for a minute. "Do we have a deal?"

He nodded slowly, once.

Four dimensions instead of two had existed from the moment two decades ago when a young boy and his father fought for their lives under the ice of Reiden Lake.


	2. Lemures

Chapter 2: Lemures

Tales of Ise 136:

Today too I have been sleepless,  
>Remembering hours spent<br>In tense anticipation,  
>Waiting for someone<br>Who never came.

He had vanished before their eyes. Peter had disappeared as they looked at him, even as he spoke, exhorting both sides, both his natal world and his adopted world, to work together to prevent the war that would inevitably destroy both.

And then he was gone.

Olivia had been the first to react, running to the spot where he had been, gone as if never there.

The Secretary of Defense had brought in the most sensitive scientific instruments he had access to. The lingering traces of Peter Bishop could be found from the machine to the spot on the floor where he had been standing, and an unusual pattern of low-level radiation indicated that something had happened at that spot, something on the quantum level. Other than that, there had been no clue to where he had gone.

The disruptions on both sides had immediately quieted as a result of the machine creating a permanent connection point between them. Walter's calculations indicated it acted as a kind of anchor, though he hadn't yet reasoned out how permanent the effect would be.

And his equations didn't tell him where his son had gone.

Since Peter went away, Walter did nothing but calculations. The boards and paper in his lab were covered with them. He fell asleep on a cot in the lab, just long enough to allow him to work again. He would have forgotten to eat if Astrid didn't bring him food.

While Walter looked into the theoretical, abstract, Olivia turned toward the concrete. She went over every single fringe case, anything even remotely related to the Pattern, that she had access to, both in Broyles' records and the files Nina Sharp gave her access to. She looked for anything possibly related to disappearing people throughout history: the Mary Celeste, the Roanoke colony, even Ambrose Bierce. The problem with learning about unsolved cases was that they didn't give a lot of answers.

She was reading an old issue of _Fate _magazine in the lab sometime well after midnight. Walter, who had been up for three days straight, had lost consciousness on his cot.

Besides herself and the sleeping Walter, and the sleeping cow, the lab was empty.

Which made her think she was imagining things when she saw movement in her peripheral vision. She looked up, and sure enough, there was nothing there.

She relaxed and went back to reading.

Then she heard something clink.

She spun around, gun in hand.

There was a woman standing in the shadows. A woman she didn't know.

"Who the hell are you?" Olivia asked. She also wondered how she'd gotten in there: she hadn't heard the door open. And wasn't the door locked? Had she fallen asleep?

The woman didn't react. The clink had been a silver coin between her fingers. "This was his, wasn't it?"

Olivia, who was now standing with her gun outstretched, took a few steps closer to the woman.

She was tall and skinny, and pale, with long dark hair, wide dark eyes, a black sweatshirt, and jeans. She seemed completely unfazed by the gun.

"Yes, it was. Who are you?" Olivia repeated.

The woman looked up, her eyes locked on hers. Even in the dim light, Olivia could discern something eerie about those eyes, like a secret. "You can call me Alia." She flipped the silver coin across her fingers.

"Put that down," Olivia ordered.

She didn't. "Amazing, the hold our belongings have over us, especially if they're sentimental. Ever wonder if something we own gets imprinted with some kind of signature from us, like maybe when we care about something, look at it, touch it, it forges a connected to it. I suppose if that happens, you could use something that belongs to a person to find them, like a bloodhound catching a scent." She finally put the coin down, next to a black chess piece, a queen.

"What do you want?"asked Olivia.

"There will come a day when you'll be offered a choice. When that day comes, I want you to remember this."

Olivia heard the door unlock. She glanced behind her. The door opened, and Astrid entered.

Astrid stared at her, then at the gun she still held outstretched. "Olivia, what's going on?"

Olivia looked back at where the woman had been standing, but she was gone, gone so completely it was like she was never there.

"Did you see a woman here?" she asked.

Astrid closed the door behind her and took a few steps into the lab, looking around, then glancing at Olivia. She'd seen too much to dismiss the idea that someone else had been there, but other than Olivia and the still-asleep Walter, there was no one there, and sleep deprivation was another, slightly likelier explanation.

"No. Did you fall asleep?"

"She was talking to me. She was right here, and then she was gone. Just like that."

"Just like Peter," Astrid added.

Olivia went to the spot where the mysterious woman had been standing. On the table there was Peter's silver coin and the black queen.

She picked it up and looked at it.

"Where did that come from?" Astrid asked.

"She left it. I think she left it."

They both stared at it for a moment. The windows were beginning to turn blue with predawn light.

"Who was she?" Astrid finally asked.

"She said her name was Alia. what I want to know is..._what _was she."

"Do you think she was an observer?"

Olivia shook her head. "She didn't act like them. And I've never seen one of them just disappear like that."

"A ghost?"

Without answering, Olivia picked up Peter's coin. She could almost feel his touch still lingering on it. "I think I might know how to find him."


	3. Evening Oracle

Chapter 3: Evening Oracle

Wife of Kuramochi, Manyoshu 3812

Though they ask the diviner,  
>And seek oracles at the cross-roads,<br>There is no finding  
>The means to see you.<p>

That night—or, rather, absurdly early in the morning of the following day—Olivia was waiting, stripped, for Walter to finish preparing the drug cocktail he would use along with the sensory deprivation tank to plunge her into an enhanced dream state.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Astrid asked. She'd expressed deep concerns over the plan, knowing that Walter's desperation to find his son would make him more careless with Olivia's safety than usual.

"I've shared a dream state with Peter before. He's been in my head. He went into the deepest recesses of my mind to find me, and I'm going to return the favor."

"So no, you're not sure it's going to work," Astrid surmised.

Olivia couldn't deny it. "No, I'm not. But there's a chance, and I'm out of other ideas."

Walter came toward her with a syringe. "This is going to sting a little."

The injection burned, but Olivia ignored the pain. Walter and Astrid lowered her into the tank.

She closed her eyes. The water was close to body temperature, designed to reduce all outside sensations.

All sensations but the silver coin she clenched in her hand.

She closed her eyes as she felt the drugs begin to take affect, making her body tingle and sleep take over her mind.

They had chosen this time because, assuming Peter's sleep schedule was still keyed to this time zone, he was likely to be dreaming.

Assuming he was still alive, which Olivia did.

Her mind drifted. Her mind searched. Her mind scoured dark corners of the world and the other world and beyond.

There were things she saw there. Other things. Things that didn't even make sense to a mind opened to the normal surrealism of dreams.

It took hours, but she saw a glimmer. He slept.

He was asleep in what looked like the house he shared with Walter, but different, emptier. She came closer, her feet moving, but not her feet.

It was him. He was alive. He was real. He was beautiful.

"Peter, I'm here."

There was no sign that he heard her. He was asleep, but he wasn't dreaming.

She had found him, but that might not accomplish much.

"Peter, wake up. Please come to me."

She was close to him, but she couldn't touch him. It was like a dream; her hand wouldn't move when she directed it to.

"Please Peter..."


	4. J'adoube

Chapter 4: J'adoube

Fujiwara no Okikaze, Kokinshu 569:

suffering I try  
>resolutely to put you<br>from my mind but still  
>these things called dreams deceive me<br>into fresh anticipation

Peter felt like he'd just closed his eyes when he was roused by something metallic clinging against the glass top of the coffee table.

At first, in the meager light, his bleary eyes couldn't make out the object on the table.

He picked it up. It looked just like the silver coin he used to have. Where had that come from?

As his eyes adjusted, Olivia seemed to appear in the middle of his living room. For a brief moment he worried about what she'd think of him falling asleep in his boxers and teeshirt on his living room couch. But then, she was the one who was trespassing.

He sat up. "What's the case?" he mumbled in resignation.

She just stared at him. "What?"

"I said what's the case. It'd better be a good one; I just went to sleep."

Olivia looked at him, then shook her head. "Peter, don't you recognize me? It's me. Olivia."

He stared at her, eyes widening. It couldn't possibly be true. "Olivia?" He shook his head. "Is that you? Really you?"

"Peter, I know this doesn't make sense, but we're dreaming. I think I'm in your dream. I found you."

She reached out and touched his face. Her hand felt so real.

"Olivia..." he breathed. Then doubt clouded his eyes. "I'm not where you are. I'm in a different timeline, another dimension. Something happened after the machine. Something went wrong. I died here."

"I'm going to bring you back, Peter. I'm going to find a way. I promise."

Peter pressed his hand over hers. But it didn't feel real anymore; it felt like touching his own skin. He was waking up, or she was. "No. No. Wait, Olivia. Olivia!"

He reached for her. His hand lifted into the air.

The room was as deserted as it had been when he fell asleep.

Olivia was gone, and he felt empty and alone.

He lay back down and closed his eyes, close to tears. "Olivia..."

He couldn't fall back asleep. Was that just another dream, or had Olivia—_his _Olivia—really come to him? It had seemed so real.

But so had so many other dreams since he'd come here.


	5. Evidence of Absence

Chapter 5: Evidence of Absence

Fujiwara no Kintada, Wakan Roei Shu 184:

I did not move ahead  
>But stayed here on the mountain path,<br>For I wanted to hear again  
>The voice of the hototogisu.<p>

Olivia glanced up when Peter walked in. He looked tired and distracted, and a little like he'd just walked into a wall. In sum, exactly as he had looked every day for the past two weeks.

She couldn't blame him for being depressed and withdrawn. His circumstances—being trapped in a world that looked like his world but wasn't, with a man who looked like his father but wasn't and a woman who looked like his lover but wasn't—would get to anyone.

But for the sake of their cases, Olivia wished he would snap out of it. The past couple of cases he'd offered the minimal level of help, spending not a minute longer at the lab than he had to and barely speaking to them.

This case though, she thought, might catch his interest.

"Hi Peter. How are you?"

"Fine." He didn't look at her. "What did you want me to take a look at?"

She turned to a folder of photographs in front of her. "Last week there was a small earthquake in Ontario, Canada. A few days later, there was an explosion in a coal mine less than a mile from the epicenter. The mine had been closed pending a damage assessment after the quake, so luckily no one was hurt. You may have heard about it on the news."

"Yeah. But it's not quite weird enough to land on our desk. Let me guess: there's something about the explosion they didn't mention on the news?"

"Of course." She flipped through the file until she found three graphs, which she turned so he could read them right-side up. "These are gravitational readings of the area before and after the earthquake and again after the explosion."

Even with his expertise in physics, it took Peter a minute to comprehend what the charts were showing, though the results didn't surprise him. "Several tons of rock disappeared after the quake, then about the same amount appeared in the mine at the time of the explosion."

"You've seen something like this before?" she inquired.

"Yeah. A building crossed over from the other side and merged with the same building on our side. It was horrible."

"I worked that case, too." Olivia told him. "It still haunts me. The thing about this is, the other side didn't report anything like it."

"So either they're lying..."

"And I don't see anything they'd gain by lying about this..."

"...Or the rock that exploded in that mine crossed over from somewhere else, some other dimension." Could it have been from the dimension he'd come from? Peter couldn't help but wonder.

He looked through the rest of the pictures, which were of a sinkhole that appeared after the earthquake and the mine after the explosion. Rocks were strewn everywhere in a violent pattern, rocks poked out of the walls, floor, and ceiling of the mine at unnatural angles. He shuddered to imagine what it would have looked like if the miners had not been evacuated before it happened.

Then he came to a photo that gave an idea of what that would look like. "I thought no one was in the mine."

"No one was. That's not human. It's some kind of animal."

"What animal that big lives that deep underground?"

"None," she replied. "We're still waiting for the results of genetic tests on whatever that thing was. At my request the Canadian government is shipping what they can find of the corpse to Walter's lab."

"Oh, he'll love that."

"As much as he ever loves anything."

Peter frowned at the reminder of how different Walter Bishop had become without his son in his life.

He missed his father_._

His thoughts went back to his dream from two weeks ago. Every night since, he'd been falling asleep with the hope that he would see her again. But it hadn't happened. It was starting to seem crazy that he'd been so convinced it was real, that it was really his Olivia contacting him. It was just a dream.

But then, if anyone could cross dimensions to communicate with him in a dream, it was Olivia.


	6. Redivivus

Chapter 6: Redivivus

Anonymous, Wakan Roei Shu 228:

The autumn bush clover blooming  
>In the deserted fields of Iware<br>Where the young quail sings—  
>Today I remember<br>How I saw this with my beloved.

They arrived at the lab shortly before the mysterious remains from the mine explosion did. Walter, as usual, made a show of ignoring Peter and addressed all his comments to Olivia.

"I've looked at the preliminary results of the genetic tests. They are fascinating," he said.

"Any idea what that thing was?" Olivia asked.

"An idea, yes. But I'll keep it to myself until I have a chance to confirm it with my own examination. But if my hypothesis is correct, it's not from here. And it's not from Over There, either."

"So you think it came from another dimension, a third dimension?"

"Or outer space," Peter suggested jokingly.

When the chunk of unidentifiable flesh arrived, packed in ice in a crate, Walter and Astrid lifted it onto an examination table. Walter started out by examining a tissue sample under a microscope.

"I don't think there are any bones in this," Astrid said as she turned the chunk.

"What does that mean?" Olivia wondered.

"That whatever this chunk of meat came off of, it used to be really big," said Peter.

"I believe my conjecture was correct; this musculature bears resemblance to both reptilian and avian forms."

Astrid had just run an x-ray over the remains and was looking at the resulting image. Her eyes widened and her eyebrows rose. It was hard to tell under the surgical mask, but her jaw may also have dropped. "Walter, I think you should take a look at this."

Walter hurried to her side. When he saw what she saw, he grinned. "This is even better. From this we can even identify the species."

"What is it?" Olivia asked.

Instead of answering, Walter took a scalpel and cut into the meat. When the scalpel hit something, he slid his hand into the slice. It emerged a moment later with what looked like a large tooth. A very large, very pointy tooth.

"My God," Peter said. "That's a dinosaur tooth."

"Yes," Walter answered, in his excitement forgetting his policy of ostracizing the man who reminded him of his son. "My guess is a dromaeosaurid, from the size possibly a Utahraptor."

"So this thing," Olivia pointed to the remains on the table, "was a Utahraptor?"

"Heavens no. By the looks of it, this was some kind of sauropod. But at some point it survived an attack from a Utahraptor, escaping with a tooth from the predator embedded in the flesh of its hip."

Olivia stared at the tooth as Walter dabbed it clean of blood. It was shiny and yellow, like ivory. "It doesn't look like a dinosaur tooth."

"Not like the ones you may be familiar with. This one isn't fossilized. It's fresh. From the amount of healing in the tissue around it, it most likely was lost by its owner no more than a few months ago."

"But dinosaurs are extinct," Olivia stated.

Peter smiled. "Apparently not in the universe this came from."

"But why is it here?" Olivia asked. "Why would our universe be colliding with this one? No one's ever crossed over to an alternate dimension with dinosaurs before."

"That we know of," Walter reminded her.

"It could be because of me," Peter speculated dismally. "When I came to this dimension, who knows what kind of inter-dimensional chaos that could be causing."

"Yes," Walter agreed absently. "But what we really must determine is if incidences of this kind will continue. Perhaps we will need to create a bridge to anchor us to that dimension as well."

"If our universe keeps bumping in to other universes, and we keep building connections to fix it, that could really get out of hand," Astrid commented.

"Still, dinosaurs," said Peter. "You have to admit, it would be cool to go there."

Astrid gave him a dubious look.

Peter chuckled, then turned to Walter. "Could there be a way to learn more about the universe that came from by examining the rocks in the mine?"

Walter turned away sharply, apparently offended at having Peter address him so directly. "I don't see how. Even if the rocks contain radiation proving they _did _cross universes, it would tell us very little about how or from where!"

"Just thought I'd ask," Peter said quietly.

Olivia gave him a sympathetic look. "Still, It might help to take a look at the scene ourselves. I'll see if I can get approval for a little road trip."

Peter looked down at the dinosaur tooth, now lying in a dish on the table. If they could learn more about traveling between other dimensions, other than the parallel earth so close to theirs they'd nearly collided, maybe it could help him get back to where he belonged.

Between that and dinosaurs, this case had definitely caught his interest.


	7. Ephemeron

Chapter 7: Ephemeron

Book of Songs 150, "Mayfly":

Wings of the mayfly—  
>Dress so bright and new.<br>My heart is grieving;  
>Come back to me and stay.<p>

Wing-sheaths of the mayfly—  
>Clothes so bright and gay.<br>My heart is grieving;  
>Come back to me and bide.<p>

A mayfly that breaks out from its hole—  
>Hemp clothes, spotless as snow.<br>My heart is grieving;  
>Come back to me and rest<p>

Peter had been worried that he wouldn't be able to fall asleep, but he managed to very quickly, doubtless helped in a large part by the lateness of the hour when he finally got back to his house.

He dreamed about dinosaurs, at first. But then, after a few hours, he felt a touch and opened his eyes.

"Olivia?"

"Peter." She sat down on the bed next to him and took his hand. "I don't know how much time I have before I'm pulled back. I have a plan, but I need you to do exactly what I tell you. Tomorrow night, I need you to be at Reiden Lake, at the dock at the east shore, at 11:42. Can you be there Peter?"

"What are you going to..."

"No time. Can you be there, please?" Her eyes were desperate and imploring.

He'd have to evade his surveillance, and probably steal a car, both of which were doable. "Yes, of course."

She exhaled with relief. "Thank you."

He could already feel her slipping away as he grasped her hand. It was like trying to hold on to sand.

Olivia jolted into consciousness in the sensory deprivation tank. When Walter heard her splashing, he opened the door and helped her climb out.

Astrid wasn't there. They hadn't told her Olivia was going back in the tank. When Walter had come up with the plan, Astrid had objected in the strongest terms. Abandoning her usual composure, she had screamed at Walter that they had lost Peter and letting Olivia throw her life away wasn't going to bring him back.

Walter and Olivia had exchanged a look, then both agreed that they would find another way. As soon as Astrid left, they had started discussing how to put the plan into action. Astrid couldn't know, because Astrid would tell Broyles, and Broyles would stop them.

"Did you see him?" Walter asked anxiously. "Did you give him the message?"

"Yes," Olivia gasped out in answer.

"Will he be there?"

"I think so."

Walter's haggard face collapsed into a smile. "Thank you."

Olivia didn't have a reply. They still had a lot of work to do by that night. So many things could go wrong.

And even if nothing went wrong, there was no guarantee this would work. No guarantee that today wouldn't be Olivia's last day on earth.


	8. Selenehelion

Chapter 8: Selenehelion

Emily Dickinson, from "Sic transit gloria mundi":

Peter, put up the sunshine,  
>Patti, arrange the stars;<br>Tell Luna, _tea_ is waiting,  
>And call your brother Mars!<p>

Snow had fallen earlier that night, but now the sky was clearing up. The moon and stars glowed through gaps in the clouds, which caught the moonlight in sheets of white.

Olivia looked out over Reiden Lake. The view was obscured by a puff of visible breath every time she exhaled. She was wearing a coat, but was already cold.

Astrid was right: this was a terrible idea. Way too dangerous.

But Peter was alone in a world that wasn't his home, and she couldn't let him wait any longer.

Walter walked up next to her. "Are you ready?"

"How long would it take hypothermia to set in on a night like this?" Olivia wondered.

"Minutes."

She had been hoping for one of his absurdly specific answers, but upon reflection she doubted that would be any more reassuring.

"You know," Walter said slowly, "if you don't want to do this, I won't make you. We can go back now." It obviously hurt him even to suggest it. He wanted his son back.

"I'm going to do it," she answered.

He nodded.

She looked back at the lake. "Tell Astrid I'm sorry. I've left letters for Broyles and Rachel on my kitchen table. Can you make sure they get them? And if this doesn't work, I want you to know...I'm sorry I failed."

They walked to the end of the dock. The lake was frozen over at the shoreline, but here it was still ice-free.

"Let's do it."

Walter gave her a hug. They clutched each other tightly. Then he jabbed a hypodermic needle containing a Cortexiphan and adrenaline cocktail into her neck.

Olivia inhaled sharply. Her pulse began to race. She took a stumbling step closer to the edge.

Water, they had deduced, made it easier to travel between universes. Since it was so close to the density of the human body, when someone traveled from one dimension to another while submerged, water rushed back to take the place of the mass lost by one universe. On Olivia's test runs, when she went from their dimension to the other side, if she wasn't submerged in water on both sides she was yanked back within a minute by the vacuum left behind.

Reiden Lake, Walter had calculated, would be the easiest place to go from one universe to another, as the previous events on that site had weakened the boundaries between dimensions.

Olivia clung to the silver dollar in her pocket, concentrating on it, on Peter. As her consciousness began to blur she searched for him, searched for the spark of soul as familiar to her as her own.

The dock ran out beneath her feet, and she plunged into the ice-cold water.

The shock of the cold to her drug-enhanced senses caused an instant reaction. Reality shattered before her. Her hands and mind scrambled for warmth, locked on the the glimmer of hope. She felt universes pass through her, the usual pain lost in the cold.

They slowed to a stop. She began swimming up. Up.

Her head broke through the surface of the water into the even harsher cold of the air. She opened her eyes.

There, standing on the dock in the moonlight on the dock, was Peter.


	9. Alpenglow

Chapter 9: Alpenglow

Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Indian Serenade":

I arise from dreams of thee  
>In the first sweet sleep of night,<br>When the winds are breathing low,  
>And the stars are shining bright:<br>I arise from dreams of thee,  
>And a spirit in my feet<br>Hath lead me—who knows how?  
>To thy chamber window, Sweet!<p>

The wandering airs they faint  
>On the dark, the silent stream—<br>The Champak odors fail  
>Like sweet thoughts in a dream;<br>The nightingale's complaint,  
>It dies upon her heart;—<br>As I must on thine,  
>Oh, beloved as though art!<p>

Oh lift me from the grass!  
>I die! I faint! I fail!<br>Let thy love in kisses rain  
>On my lips and eyelids pale.<br>My cheek is cold and white, alas!  
>My heart beats loud and fast;—<br>Oh! press it to thine own again,  
>Where it will break at last.<p>

Peter stared in amazement as a human form bubbled up toward the moonlit ripples at the lake's surface. He knew it was her even before her face broke the surface.

"Olivia!" he gasped.

Running to the edge of the dock, he reached for her. Ignoring the freezing water, he grasped her outstretched hands and pulled her into his arms. He felt the brush of her cold, wet lips for a second.

He held her tightly against him. Olivia: _his _Olivia. All he could think was that she was here. He didn't think about how it was possible, or what would happen next.

She buried her face against his neck and began to shiver. There was so much she wanted to say to him, but all she could articulate was his name. "Peter."

"Come on," he breathed. "Let's get you out of here."

He took off his coat and wrapped it around her. He would have gladly died that moment to keep her warm. With his arms around her he led her toward the SUV at the side of the road.

Olivia was in a daze from the drugs and the shock. All she wanted and all she could think was to hold Peter and never let go. She leaned against him, unable to walk on her own.

They were about halfway between the lake and the SUV when they heard the sirens.

Two police cars and an unmarked van sped up the snowy road. They came to a stop between them and the SUV.

Olivia stiffened. Peter gave her a squeeze. "It's okay," he said reassuringly. "They're here for me."

Someone got out of the van and trained a glaring flashlight on them. It illuminated Peter's face for a moment, then darted to Olivia's face, and lingered there.

"I need to get her out of the cold. She's freezing," Peter explained loud enough for the shadowed figure to hear. "She came for me."

The person holding the flashlight didn't respond for a moment, then opened the back door of the van. "Get in."

Olivia recognized the voice immediately: it was her own.


	10. Waif

Chapter 10: Waif

Anonymous, Wakan Roei Shu 85:

Seeking out the cherries  
>The rain began to fall;<br>Yet as I came to hunt those flowers  
>Now I would take shelter<br>In their shade.

Olivia glanced frequently into the rear-view mirror.

Peter and the woman who looked like her had not spoken much. Just after being shoved into the back of the van, Peter had murmured comforting reassurances to her, but now they just held each other in silence.

Olivia had been surprised but not shocked when she heard Peter had managed to hotwire and drive away in an FBI-issue SUV. She was mostly perplexed by his choice of vehicle: he had to know it was equipped with a GPS locator.

She had been disappointed in him, but when the stolen vehicle was tracked to Reiden Lake, she concluded he had some kind of scheme to go back to his own universe, and she just wondered why he hadn't asked for her help.

The woman—the other her—just raised more questions. Peter at least believed it was the Olivia from his universe, but how had she gotten there? And how had Peter known she would be there? They both had a lot of questions to answer.

Olivia hadn't heard the woman say anything. She seemed out of it.

The way Peter held her, the woman he loved and had never expected to see again...Olivia couldn't deny feeling a twinge of envy.

When they first met Peter had looked at her like that.

It was morning by the time they arrived at Fringe Division headquarters. They led Peter and the mysterious other Olivia into the building, where they were met by Broyles.

Broyles stared at the other Olivia for almost a minute. She still looked dazed and bedraggled, and stared back at him, waiting.

Finally he turned to Olivia—the familiar Agent Dunham who had been working for him for over three years. "What happened?"

Before she had a chance to answer, the Olivia in front of him spoke. "I understand this is a complicated situation, sir. My name is Agent Olivia Dunham, and I'm from another parallel universe. I came here to find him." She pointed her eyes at Peter.

"I haven't had a chance to question Peter about it," Agent Dunham said, "but when we tracked him to Reiden Lake, she was there too."

Broyles looked at Peter, then back at the other Olivia. When he spoke, the words were obviously meant for his Agent Dunham. "Could she be a shapeshifter?"

"It's possible," she answered. She had been considering that.

The woman who looked like Olivia Dunham spoke again. "Test my blood; I'm not a shapeshifter."

"They have shapeshifters here who don't rely on mercury. They're genetically indistinguishable from humans," Peter explained to her.

Her eyes widened, suddenly more concerned.

"We're going to need to test her extensively. And Peter, you have some explaining to do," Broyles said. "Take her to the lab, take him to the cell."

"No," Peter implored. "Please, don't make me leave her. I'll answer any questions you have, and you can run whatever tests you want, but don't make me leave her."

Broyles didn't consider it for a moment. "Take them," he repeated.

An agent grasped Peter's arm. The woman who looked like Olivia said nothing, but clung to Peter until they were pulled apart.

"It'll be okay, Olivia," he told her. "It's going to be okay. You can trust them."

She didn't look convinced, and kept her eyes locked on him as he was led to the cell where he'd spent his first few days in this world.


	11. Jalouse

Chapter 11: Jalouse

Mary De La Riviere Manley, "Song":

Ah, Dangerous Swain, tell me no more,  
>Thy Happy Nymph you Worship and Adore!<br>When thy fill'd Eyes are sparkling at her Name,  
>I raving wish that mine had caus'd the Flame.<p>

If by your fire to her you can impart  
>Diffusive heat to warm another's heart;<br>Ah, dangerous Swain, what would the ruin be,  
>Should you but once persuade you burn for me!<p>

Peter looked up when Agent Dunham walked into his cell.

"Where is she?" he asked grimly.

She sat down next to him, staring at him like she'd never seen him before. "Broyles took her to the lab. Walter is going to examine her."

"Be careful with her. She's been through a lot."

She continued examining his face. "How do you know she is who she says she is?"

"I know it's her the same way I know you're not: I know her. I've been inside her head, and she's been in mine. I've been through so much with her."

"Why did you go to Reiden Lake?"

"She told me to meet her there."

"When did she tell you to meet her there? When did she communicate with you?"

"Last night, in a dream."

"A dream?" she repeated incredulously.

"Yeah. She contacted me through a dream. I'm not exactly sure how she did it, but like you she has the ability to cross dimensions, and shared dream states are something Walter has induced before."

Olivia stood up then and took a step away. "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you steal a car, instead of asking me for help?"

From the confusion in her voice, he realized that question wasn't part of the interrogation, she was asking as a friend, asking why he didn't confide in her about what was really going on.

It hadn't crossed his mind, and now he realized why. "To be honest, I didn't know if I could trust you. I didn't know if you would believe me, and if you tried to keep me from going...I couldn't risk that. I wasn't entirely sure she would be there, that the dream was true, but I couldn't risk not showing up if it was. I had to be there for her if she came. I had to be the one there to meet her."

She nodded, more to herself than him. "You should have told me. I don't know what's going to happen, to you or to her."

"Don't let anything happen to her," he almost begged. "She just came to find me. She didn't do anything wrong. And I promise she's not a shapeshifter."

"I'll see what I can do, but..."

"But you don't trust me."

"But I'm not sure you should be trusting her." She sat back down. "Tell me everything, starting at the beginning."


	12. Prima Facie

Chapter 12: Prima Facie

Anonymous, Wakan Roei Shu 293:

How uncertain:  
>Even through a rift in the morning mists,<br>I cannot see who it might be—  
>Flower of morning faces.<p>

Olivia entered the lab, followed closely by Broyles and Agent Lincoln Lee. Olivia looked terrible: hair uncombed, clothes wrinkled, face pale.

"Olivia, what happened?" Astrid asked. Then she noticed Broyles had a gun pointed steadily at her. "What's going on?"

Broyles explained. "This is not Olivia Dunham, at least not our Olivia Dunham. She claims to be from the same universe as Peter Bishop."

Walter stood up. "How exciting! It's just like a spy movie. Would you like me to examine her?"

"That is precisely what we'd like you to do, Dr. Bishop. We want to make sure she isn't a shapeshifter. Until we determine that much, she is to be considered extremely dangerous and kept restrained."

He and Lincoln strapped her in to a surgical chair. Olivia didn't protest. She knew trying to resist at this point would be a risky and suspicious move on her part.

Astrid was staring at her like she expected them all to say this was some kind of joke at any moment. Olivia smiled at her. "Hi Astrid. Nice to meet you. I'm sure we'll be properly introduced later."

"And Dr. Bishop," Broyles handed Walter a small device they'd found along with her gun and Peter's silver coin when they searched her. It looked like an LED light sealed in a watertight plastic sleeve. "Do you have any idea what this could be?"

"You could ask me," Olivia suggested. "I'll cooperate. It's one of two quantum entangled lights that my Dr. Bishop made so we could send messages to each other in Morse code."

"We've seen technology like that before. The shapeshifters from the other side used quantum entangled typewriters to communicate."

"They did in my universe, too. That's where we got the idea. This light isn't as sophisticated as their typewriter, but it's the best Walter could come up with on short notice."

"Delightful! I could use this to send messages to myself. That reminds me of a time when I sent a colleague a message encoded as Morse code in the lengths of repetitions of junk DNA in the genome of a _c. elegans. _I believe the message pertained to the size of his research assistant's bust line."

"Can you determine if she is who she says she is?" Broyles inquired sternly.

"I don't believe so. But I may be able to tell if she is a shapeshifter. I find that when one goes about studying a specimen with an open mind, you find answers to questions you didn't even know you had asked."

Broyles nodded, satisfied. He turned to Lincoln and Astrid. "Remember, if she is a shapeshifter, she is incredibly dangerous. Do not let your guard down."

Walter began connecting monitoring devices to Olivia. She watched him, wondering about the differences she saw in him. She hadn't really had a chance to talk to Peter, and didn't know how much was different here.

Peter had said he died here. What did he mean by that?

"They have Peter locked up. Apparently he had to run away to find me," Olivia said to Walter. "If you're anything like the Walter Bishop I know, you must be upset by that."

Walter paused and stared at her. "That man is not my son, and you are not Agent Dunham."

"When did Peter die?" she asked.

Walter continued his work before answering. "He died as a child, of a rare genetic condition."

"My Walter's son died the same way. He made a gate to another universe to save the Peter from over there, and after he saved his life, he raised him as his own son."

Walter trembled, and tightened an electrode over her arm so hard that she winced.

Broyles stepped toward her. "How did you come to our universe?" he asked.

"I have a natural ability to cross universes, which was enhanced by the Cortexiphan treatments I underwent as a child." She glanced at Walter, wondering if the same trials had occurred here. "My Walter put me in an enhanced dream state, which allowed my mind to locate Peter, and then he took me to Reiden Lake, where the line between dimensions is thinnest, and I crossed over."

"And what is your intention now that you're here?"

"To bring Peter back," she answered. "To bring him back with me, to where we belong."

"How do you plan on doing that?"

She took a beat to answer. That part of the plan was a bit vague. "I can take objects with me when I cross. Clothes, my gun, that light. It takes more energy the more I take, but I believe I could pull Peter along with me when I cross back."

Broyles stared at her hard. "How long have you known Peter Bishop?"

"Over three years now."

"When did he disappear from your universe?"

"The Sixth of May, 9:56 P.M."

Broyles glanced up at Astrid. They both realized that was around the same time the Machine had made the gate between universes, which matched with Peter's account.

Which didn't mean much. A shapeshifter could have come by that knowledge some other way.

Broyles frowned. If she was telling the truth, and she and Peter were from a world almost identical to theirs, she would know classified details about the Fringe Division.

This Other Olivia was staring at him challengingly, waiting for him to ask her anything.

She didn't even flinch when Walter took a blood sample.

"I know you're not going to just trust me," she said, looking Broyles in the eye. "You didn't when we first started working together, either. You're someone whose trust has to be earned. I know that. But I earned your trust before and I intend to again."

The door to the lab opened and Agent Dunham entered. She stared at the woman in restraints. It was always disconcerting seeing someone who looked just like her. She wondered how identical twins got used to it.

Broyles went to her. "What did Peter Bishop tell you?"

"He says she contacted him in a dream to tell him where to meet her," she said.

"And you believe him?"

Agent Dunham considered that question. "I believe that he believes it. But to be honest..."

"This whole situation is difficult to believe."

She nodded. "But we've seen weirder stuff."

Walter was still running tests on the other Olivia, with Astrid's help. Astrid was talking with the subject, mostly asking her questions about Peter. It sounded like a friendly chat, but Agent Dunham noticed Astrid was steering the conversation to include things Peter had told them about, subtly testing her.

It was well over an hour before Walter smiled at them and clapped. "That's it!" he declared.

Broyles turned toward him, intensely interested. "That's what, Dr. Bishop?"

"That's all the tests I can think to run on her. Physiologically, this woman is the same as Agent Dunham, right down to the fingerprints, though it does appear she's healed from fewer broken bones in her lifetime than our Agent Dunham has."

Broyles nodded and looked at Astrid. "Do you concur, Agent Farnsworth?"

"As far as I can tell, she is who she says she is," Astrid replied with a shrug.

Dunham and Broyles exchanged glances. It would have been one thing if they found something out of the ordinary, but since they didn't know how to distinguish the newest generation of shapeshifters from the humans they impersonated, so far they'd proven nothing.

"She could still be a shapeshifter," Agent Dunham stated.

"But the likelihood is she isn't."

"Should we let her go?"

"We can't take the chance."

"What other choice do we have?"

They discussed the question in murmured tones for several minutes. Olivia watched from where she was still restrained in the chair.

"I would love to study you further, my dear," Walter said to her. "You and our Agent Dunham would provide fantastic subjects for various nature versus nurture debates."

"I'd like that too," she said absently. She was trying to hear what this universe's version of her and Broyles were saying.

Broyles glanced back at her for a moment, then they left the room.

They returned a few minutes later and spoke to Agent Lee.

Olivia didn't hear what they said to him, but he didn't like it.

"What? No! That's...I'm not having anything to do with it."

"Lincoln..." Agent Dunham started.

"How can you even be considering that?"

"It's the only way. If you don't like it, you may leave," Broyles said.

Lincoln looked up at Olivia, shook his head, and then stalked out of the room.

Broyles and Dunham came back toward Walter, Astrid, and Olivia.

"Oh Agent Dunham," Walter said, "I would like to study you and this new Olivia side by side."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible," said Broyles. "Dr. Bishop, Agent Farnsworth, could you step out of the room please?"

Astrid looked confused, but complied.

"I will not leave my lab and my test subject unattended," Walter said. "At least without knowing what you plan to do with them."

Agent Dunham explained. "There's no way to tell if this woman is me or a shapeshifter."

"And that makes her too dangerous, even if restrained," said Broyles. "If a shapeshifter took Agent Dunham's place, she could bring down Fringe Division."

"Which leaves us with one option," Dunham said, frowning. She looked at Olivia. "I'm sorry."

Broyles took out his gun and aimed it directly at her head.

Olivia's eyes widened. She shook her head. She had trouble believing what was happening. "Don't kill me, please. Run more tests, keep me confined, but don't kill me. I'm as human as you are."

His hand trembled, but his eyes were steel.

"The Phillip Broyles I know would never do this. We're friends. I trust you with my life. If you kill me, you'll regret it."

"Dunham, Dr. Bishop, you should leave too," Broyles recommended.

Walter looked stunned, and didn't move.

"I'm staying here," Dunham said.

Broyles nodded. He didn't take his eyes or gun off Olivia.

"Please," Olivia breathed. "I just wanted to see Peter."

Agent Dunham moved next to Walter, watching him in case he made a move.

"It's the only option," Broyles said. "I'm sorry, Miss Dunham."


	13. Trial by Ordeal

Chapter 13: Trial by Ordeal

Emily Dickinson:

If any sink, assure that this, now standing—  
>Failed like Themselves—and conscious that it rose—<br>Grew by the Fact, and not the Understanding  
>How Weakness passed—or Force—arose—<p>

Tell that the Worst, is easy in a Moment—  
>Dread, but the Whizzing, before the Ball—<br>When the Ball enters, enters Silence—  
>Dying—annuls the power to kill.<p>

At the sound of the gunshot, Olivia jolted, and her eyes snapped shut.

She could smell the gunpowder, but felt no pain.

Her eyes opened slowly. She glared at Broyles. "It was a blank," she surmised.

"Of course," he said, putting his gun back in its holster.

Agent Dunham was looking over readings from the monitoring devices still connected to Olivia. "Her heart rate went up when you pulled the gun on her and spiked when you pulled the trigger. The amount of force exerted against her restraints are within normal parameters for someone with a rush of adrenalin. These readings indicate she's as human as I am."

"I apologize for the deception," Broyles said. He released her restraints.

"No problem," she replied, rubbing the bruises developing where her wrists had thrashed against the restraints the moment the gun went off. "So I'm free to go?"

"Not exactly. Until we can figure out how to get you back where you came from, you'll be under the same restrictions as Peter Bishop. We will keep your gun and the communication device you brought with you for the time being. And I would like to share information with you on the fringe cases we both have worked. I already have information on your cases from debriefing Peter Bishop, but as he's a civilian consultant and you're an FBI agent, I'm sure your information will be more complete, especially if you share our Olivia Dunham's remarkable memory."

Olivia nodded. Her heartbeat was starting to return to normal. "What are the restrictions you have Peter under?"

"Unless he's assisting on our cases, he's not allowed to go anywhere outside his house unescorted, to keep his contact with the civilians of our world to a minimum."

"I can live with that," she decided after a moment's consideration. She looked up at him. He was being conciliatory, probably feeling guilty over his ruse. "Can I see him now?"

* * *

><p>The door to Peter's cell opened. Lincoln was standing there. "You're free to go," he said.<p>

Lincoln didn't look happy. He appeared upset, maybe a little ill.

Peter stood. "I can go?"

"You don't officially exist, so there wouldn't be much point in pressing charges for the stolen car, and Broyles decided you weren't likely to run away again, since we have what you want."

Peter followed Lincoln out of the cell. "So did you meet Olivia?"

"Yeah. She seems nice."

They arrived at the lobby just as Broyles and the two Olivias came through the front doors. Olivia had showered and been given fresh clothes to wear—probably a spare outfit on loan from her counterpart.

Peter smiled and sprinted to her. "Olivia."

She smiled at him, but her face was drawn and pale. Something had happened to her.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said.

He knew she was lying. He'd always been good at picking up on when she was just pretending to be okay.

It had to have something to do with the tests they'd run on her. He placed his hand on her arm protectively and glared at Broyles and Dunham. "Can I take her home now?"

"Yes," Broyles said. "But don't even think of pulling anything like that again."


	14. Shibboleth

Chapter 14: Shibboleth

Po Chu-i, from "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow":

We'll be in heaven as birds flying wing to wing,  
>On earth as trees with branches intertwined.<p>

Olivia looked around the front room of the sparsely furnished house she recognized from the shared dream state.

"Sorry it's not very...inviting. I don't get a lot of company," Peter said.

She laughed, then turned to him. "Oh Peter, it's so good to see you."

He stepped across the gap between them and wrapped his arms around her. They embraced for a long minute before their lips found each other. They kissed for an even longer minute. Then he drew back and just looked at her, gazed into the eyes of the Olivia he loved, with whom he'd spent the past three years investigating the most nightmarish cases they could imagine, the Olivia who had twice now crossed the borders of dimensions, bending the laws of physics to find him.

The Olivia who remembered him.

"Do you remember what I called you the first time we met in Iraq that really annoyed you?" he asked.

She smirked, recognizing that this was his test to make sure she was who she said she was. "Sweetheart," she answered. "And do you remember the first thing I said to you after I woke up in the hospital after the car accident?" It didn't hurt to be careful.

"'Be a better man than your father'," he said in Greek.

She smiled and rested her hands on his shoulders. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. We need to be careful. Speaking of, we should probably come up with a new code phrase. But not here; I'm pretty sure they have my house bugged."

"Kinky," she joked.

He laughed. "I've missed you so much, Olivia."

Her smile faded away. "I have so much to tell you."

"There's so much I want to tell you," he said, thinking of the future he'd seen for them. "But it can wait."

"Peter, there's something...there's something you need to know." She looked unhappy when she spoke, distracted. There was something wrong.

"Is it about Walter...?"

"No, Walter's fine," she assured him. "I don't know how to say this..."

"It can wait," he told her. "Neither of us got any sleep at all last night. You can tell me in the morning."

She nodded.

He led her to his bed. They both climbed beneath the covers, and then just looked at each other, overwhelmed at being together again.

"I'm afraid that if I fall asleep this will turn out to be a dream," Olivia confessed.

"Don't worry about it," he took her hand. "I'll be right here when you wake up. You need your rest."

She didn't close her eyes. Her smile was distant and flickering. "When you came out of the machine, you said you'd seen the future. You seemed surprised that I was alive. I died there, didn't I?"

For a moment he was too overcome with emotion to answer. When he did it came out in a choked whisper. "Yes."

She didn't say anything. The expression on her face was one of sympathy.

"You know, the world didn't end all at once," he said, his voice now steadier. "It happened a little every day, piece by piece. The day the world ended for me...was the day I lost you. And then I lost you again after coming out of the Machine, and then again when I came here and realized the Olivia who came to me in the hospital didn't recognize me." He lay back and stared at the ceiling. "I keep losing you."

Olivia shifted in bed and lied down on top of him. For a long moment, she just looked at him, her eyes taking in every familiar detail of his dear face, and he gazed at her with the same fondness. Then she kissed him.

And then she kissed more deeply.

He backed up a few inches. "Hey, better not start that. You need rest."

"I need _you,_" she countered. She kissed him again, and he didn't have the willpower to argue.


	15. Idyll

Chapter 15: Idyll

Murasaki Shikibu:

And were you to move to deepest Yoshino,  
>I still would find you, through unceasing snow.<p>

Olivia woke up in an empty bed and experienced a moment of panic until she smelled the aromas of coffee and bacon.

She made her way to the kitchen. The pain and disorientation from yesterday were gone. The healing powers of a good night's sleep never ceased to amaze her.

Peter was making breakfast.

"You said you'd be there when I woke up," she said in mock complaint.

"I was going to be, but then I decided since you didn't look like you'd be waking up for a while I might as well have breakfast ready for you when you did. It's almost noon."

A glance at the clock confirmed that claim. "Wow, I must have been out cold. Usually I'm a light sleeper."

"I know. But you do have an excuse. Traveling to a new dimension really takes its toll."

She smiled. She loved how he could sound upbeat and confident no matter the situation. He always seemed like sunshine contrasted with her own somber nature.

He put a plate of bacon and eggs and a mug of coffee on the table for her, and they both sat down to eat.

"I feel like I've been going crazy without you," Olivia said.

"I know the feeling. It's so good to be with you again."

"Peter, there's so much I want to ask you and so much I want to tell you I don't even know where to start." She took a breath, then smiled. "I think I can get us back. Walter and I have been doing experiments, testing the limits of my powers. I think I can transport both of us back home, but it's going to be a while before I'm strong enough."

"But you're not sure, not a hundred percent sure that you can?"

"No," she admitted.

"So you came here looking for me, not sure if you'd ever get back, or even survive getting here?"

"Yes."

He was amazed at how much she was willing to sacrifice for him.

"What if...we can't both go back. What if there's not a way for me to go back?" he asked

She looked at him for a long moment. "What's your relationship like with the Olivia from here?"

He wondered why she was changing the subject, but only for a moment. It was an unfair question to ask, he realized: Olivia had a life outside him. She had her sister and niece, her job, her responsibility of saving the world. Of course he couldn't ask her to stay with him if he couldn't go back.

Then another thought occurred to him: was she asking if he and the Olivia here had a relationship?

"Tense," he stated. "She doesn't trust me, and I think it weirded her out that I thought she was you at first. She's very different from you, you know."

A shadow crossed Olivia's face.

"Last night," Peter said slowly, "you said there was something you needed to tell me. Something that's bothering you."

Olivia frowned. She stood and turned away. Peter was at her side in a moment. "Just tell me."

"After you disappeared," she started, "Walter was allowed to examine the Machine. He figured out how the other side managed to turn it on."

"How?"

"They used your DNA. That's how they were able to trick the machine into thinking you were in it. But it wasn't a pure sample. It was...there were differences. It was like half of it was your DNA, and half of it was..."

She trailed off again, shaking her head.

"What?"

"She knew what happened as soon as Walter found the DNA. Fauxlivia. I think she was about ready to kill Walternate when she figured out what he did."

"What was it?"

"There was a child. A baby. Peter, you have a son."

The words were left to ripple through the silence of the room.

Peter didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to think. How was it even possible?

Olivia answered one of his unspoken questions. "Fauxlivia was kidnapped, and the aging of the fetus was accelerated so he could be born healthy. He's a few months old now. His name's Henry. I've seen him. He's beautiful."

Olivia kept her face turned away from him. Peter stepped in front of her, so he could see her face.

She looked as conflicted as he was.

"I'm sorry, Olivia."

"It's okay. It's not your fault. You thought she was me. And these things happen. It's just...when I see Henry...he's as much mine as you were Walter's before he crossed over and brought you back. I want you to meet him."

"And I will." He cupped his hand over her cheek. "But you have to know that you're my Olivia. You're the one I love. Only you. The baby doesn't change that."

She smiled. "You always know what I need to hear. I guess that's what I get for falling in love with a con man."

"Comes with the territory," he jokingly agreed.

She kissed him, then rested her forehead against his. "I'd stay with you," she said. "If I couldn't take you back, I'd stay here with you."

He knew he should tell her not to stay with him, not to leave her life behind to be with him, but right now he couldn't bring himself to argue against something he wanted so much. He was selfish. It would hurt too much to be separated from her again.

So he just wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him, holding her like he was afraid she would be torn away from him. He _was_ afraid. He was so afraid of losing her again that he couldn't stand it.

He's always had an instinct that loving someone would bring pain with it. That's one reason he'd tried to avoid getting close to anyone for so many years.

She was pressing her cheek against his shoulder, her eyes closed.

"I love you so much, Olivia," he whispered. "And we've been through so much together. You have no idea how much I've missed just having someone who remembers the same things I do. I wish..."

He broke off. He was perilously close to tears.

"You wish what?"

He shook his head. "I think I finally understand why Walter and my mother didn't take me back to my universe after curing me when I was a child. If they loved me anywhere close to as much as I love you, I can see how it would have been too hard." He added in a whisper. "I wish there were a way I could know I'd never lose you again."

She smiled gently. "Life is uncertain. Especially ours."

He laughed. "Yeah. Tell me about it."

"But we're together now, and that's what matters."

Together they looked out the window at the falling snow.

"Yeah," he agreed.


	16. Vicariance

Chapter 16: Vicariance

Robert Frost, from "The Road Not Taken":

I shall be telling this with a sigh  
>Somewhere ages and ages hence:<br>Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—  
>I took the one less travelled by,<br>And that has made all the difference.

Peter walked up behind Olivia and looked over her shoulder.

"What are you doing?" he asked curiously.

She moved her hand to reveal the sketch she was making. It was a woman's face, a woman with dark hair and wide, dark eyes.

"Who is she?" Peter asked, examining the sketch.

"She appeared in the lab one night. The door was locked. One minute there was no one there, and then she was standing there. She gave me the idea for how to find you."

"Do you think she's an Observer? I always did think it weird that none of them appeared to be women. Makes you wonder where new Observers come from."

"I don't know. She said her name was Alia. Astrid figured out that _alia_ means 'the other' in Latin."

"So she's something else. Something other than the Observers." Peter's eyebrows creased.

Olivia noticed his perplexed expression. "Do you recognize her?"

"Maybe." He was quiet for a moment. "After the machine, after I disappeared, it was a few weeks before...before I appeared here."

Her head tilted toward him. "Where were you?"

"I have no idea. My memories from that time are fuzzy and...weird. But I feel like...I feel like I met her there."

"That makes no sense."

"No, it doesn't. But then, when's the last time anything in our lives has made sense?"

She smiled. "Good point."

"I think I talked to her there."

"What did she say?"

He shook his head slightly, trying to remember.

There was a knock at the door.

"I'll be right back," he said.

She nodded and went back to working on the sketch.

Agents Dunham and Lee were outside the door. Peter opened it. "What's up?"

"I brought satellite telemetry data from the area of the earthquake in Ontario," Agent Dunham said, handing him a thick manilla envelope. "I wanted you to look it over."

"Anything in specific you wanted me to look for?" he asked.

"Walter thinks there might be some kind of pattern in the gravitational waves. I'd like a second opinion."

"Okay. I'll take a look at it."

"We'd also like to talk to Olivia," Lincoln said. "I mean the other Olivia. Your Olivia."

She appeared at the door. "About what?"

"Broyles wants to begin debriefing you about the cases you worked in your universe as soon as possible," Lincoln said. "And we thought you might prefer we talk to you here rather than drag you back in for questioning."

"I appreciate that," Olivia said. "And I've been meaning to thank you for what you did for me earlier."

Lincoln glanced at Agent Dunham. "Don't thank me. I should have done more. I shouldn't have let it happen."

"Don't worry about it," Olivia said.

Peter looked back and forth between them. "What happened?"

"It's not important," Olivia said. "Let's get to the debriefing."

The two Olivia Dunhams sat down at the kitchen table, one wearing a suite and holding a pen and notepad in hand, the other wearing ill-fitting teeshirt and jeans she'd borrowed from Peter and holding a mug of coffee.

"I am sorry about the test," Agent Dunham said.

"But not sorry enough that you wouldn't do it again if you had to," Olivia pointed out. "Don't worry about it. I would have done the same thing. Where do you want to start?"

"Let's start with the first case you worked for Fringe Division."

Peter and Lincoln were in the living room. They could see the two Dunhams, but weren't close enough to overhear their conversation.

Peter was frowning. Lincoln had told him about the test Agent Broyles and Dunham had devised to determine Olivia wasn't a shapeshifter. He was angry, angrier about what they'd done to her than he would have been if they'd pulled something like that on him. Because it was Olivia the gun had been leveled at, it seemed indefensible.

They hadn't spoken for a couple of minutes.

"You're lucky you never met another you," Lincoln told him. "It's weird. It can be really annoying to see yourself how other people must see you."

"As far as I know, I'm the only Peter Bishop in any universe who survived."

"That's kind of a depressing thought, too."

"A little."

Lincoln nodded toward the two women at the table. "They look so much alike. The Olivia from over there at least does her hair differently. Those two could really trip us up if they tried to."

Peter smiled at the thought. "In my timeline, the Olivia from the other side replaced my Olivia for months, and I didn't figure it out."

"How close were you to her back then?"

"Too close."

"Ah." Lincoln nodded, understanding exactly what he was implying. "How long were you in the doghouse with Olivia after that?"

"I'm still trying to make it up to her. After she found out, it was like she couldn't even look at me for a while."

"But she still came here to get you anyway?"

"Yeah."

Lincoln looked back at the two women in the kitchen. "You are one lucky man."

Peter could only laugh.

"Hey, one of these days we should have a double date."

"You think it's at all a good idea to take them out in public together?"

"Why not? People will assume they're twins."

"Unless we call them both Olivia. That would raise some eyebrows."

"That's a good point," Lincoln conceded.

The conversation in the kitchen had drifted away from work.

"So let me get this straight, after Mom died, you were basically adopted by Nina sharp?"

"She was my legal guardian until I turned 18."

Olivia shook her head. "I just can't figure out how that happened. How was it that I didn't even know who Nina Sharp was until I started investigating Massive Dynamic in the FBI, and you were actually raised by her."

"And you and John Scott...?"

"Yeah. He was planning on asking me to marry him, but...his death got in the way of that. It was complicated."

Dunham shook her head. "John and I were close—a lot closer than we should have been—but not that close."

"From what I've seen and what Peter's told me, our two worlds are almost identical. How could our lives have diverged so much?"

"It's weird," she agreed thoughtfully.

"And yet we both ended up with the FBI."

"Well, I've known I wanted to be an FBI agent since I was nine, when I killed my abusive stepfather."

Olivia stared at her. "You killed him? I just shot him once. He survived. As far as I know, he's still alive."

"Is it just me," Lincoln asked, watching from the living room, "or do those two actually look like they're getting along?"

Peter looked up from the pages of data he was studying. "Yeah, they do."

"I did not expect that."

"No kidding. Especially since the Olivia from over here and from the other side can't stand each other." He tried focusing his attention back on the satellite data. "When Olivia is in an excited emotional state, she can see a difference between things from our universe and the other side."

"Olivia in an excited emotional state...that's hard to imagine."

Peter chuckled. "True. But my point is, there has to be some physical difference, something she can pick up on. Maybe something on the quantum level. And if we could figure out what..."

"We could use it to identify shapeshifters."

"Yeah. I was thinking we could use it to spot other crossover events like this one before they happen, but that would probably be an even more useful application."

The two Olivias returned to the living room. "We're going to the lab."

Peter and Lincoln stood. "You're okay going back there?" Lincoln asked Olivia.

"Yeah. We'll finish the debriefing later. Walter wanted to run some tests on the two of us, and we want to get started on it."

"What kind of tests?" Peter asked.

Agent Dunham answered. "He wants to compare us side by side. We're genetically identical, so any differences between us are a result of environment. She's never had a migraine in her life and I get them a few times a month, so we want Walter to start there."

"If he can discover what difference in our brain chemistry causes her to have migraines, he might be able to cure it," Olivia added.

"But first we're going clothes shopping, because I'm not going to be seen in public in _this_," Dunham said, gesturing to the other Olivia's attire.

"Okay," Lincoln said slowly. "We'll meet you at the lab later." After the two Olivias walked out the door, he commented, "This could get complicated."

"Complicated was three years ago when an attractive FBI agent blackmailed me into going back to Boston with her and getting my father out of an institution. This is way, way past complicated."


	17. Claustrophobia

Chapter 17: Claustrophobia

From the _Popol Vuh, _trans. Allen J. Christenson:

Come you.  
>Arrive<p>

To take earth,  
>It's dirt hole.<p>

It was dug.  
>Truly deep it went down by me.<p>

Can't you hear my call perhaps?  
>This therefore the your call.<p>

Merely away  
>It echoes.<p>

Like the one remove,  
>Two removes you are.<p>

I hear it.

Olivia Dunham and the other Olivia Dunham lay head to head on examination tables in Walter's lab. They were dressed in identical robes, and both had electrodes connected to their heads. They were both unconscious, having been sedated for a lumbar puncture.

Lincoln and Peter looked on as Walter and Astrid examined computer screens.

"Remarkable, aren't they?" Walter commented.

"Yeah," Lincoln said in a distracted voice that caused Peter to send him a sharp glance.

When he looked back at the two unconscious women, Peter had to admit that at the moment he wasn't absolutely sure which Olivia was _his_ Olivia.

"There doesn't appear to be any significant difference in their brain activity," Astrid commented.

Walter ignored her. He was busy comparing two computer printouts side-by-side. "Well, this is unusual."

"What is it?" Peter asked.

"The results of the spinal tap. The chemical composition of their cerebrospinal fluid is showing some significant divergences."

"What kind of divergences?"

"It will take me some time to analyze these results fully, but there appear to be chemicals in the brain of our Olivia Dunham that aren't manifesting in your Olivia Dunham, and the concentration of cortexiphan is almost twice as high."

"Maybe she was treated for a longer period of time in this universe than in my universe," Peter hypothesized.

"Perhaps," Walter agreed. "We will need to ask them when they regain consciousness."

"That might not be that helpful; Olivia doesn't remember much about the Cortexiphan trials. I doubt Walter would even remember how long Olivia was in the trials."

"I'll have to ask him," Walter said.

Lincoln looked up. "You've been using Olivia's Morse code thing?"

"What Morse code thing?" asked Peter.

"The quantum entangled LED that your Olivia brought with her. Yes. Myself and my counterpart have been having several interesting exchanges, though by practicality they have been rather brief."

"You've been communicating with my father?" He was surprised by a slight quaver in his own voice.

"Yes. He's asked about you. For a while, he was perhaps a bit upset with me. But then we got into a fascinating discussion about the nature of free will and homemade ice cream recipes."

"I don't think that when Broyles asked you to study it he intended you to actually use it," Lincoln mentioned, though he didn't sound particularly disapproving.

"Well how else did he expect me to find out if it works?"

"Good point," Peter said.

After Walter concluded the tests and before the two Olivia's awoke, Broyles entered the lab. "What's going on?"

Lincoln and Astrid stood and faced him. Astrid was about to explain, but Walter beat her to it.

"We are comparing the brain activity and chemistry of the two Olivia Dunhams to determine why one suffers from migraines and the other does not."

It sounded much less invasive than it actually was.

Broyles nodded. "I've been trying to reach Agent Dunham. I wondered why she wasn't answering her phone. The Canadian government found out about Fringe Division's interest in the Ontario earthquake and mine explosion."

"And let me guess, they want us to mind our own business?" said Peter.

"On the contrary. They want our team to take a first-hand look, since we have more experience with this kind of phenomenon than they do. Peter, I'd like you to go with them."

"If I'm going, my Olivia's going too," he said.

"I'll see if I can arrange it. We'll need to get your Miss Dunham some false IDs and a cover story. Have Agent Dunham call me when she comes to."

"Thank you," Peter said as Broyles walked by him out the door.

* * *

><p>Her passport said her name was Brae Dunham. It wasn't a name she would have chosen, but Brae was the only other woman with the surname of Dunham born in the United States on the same day as Olivia Dunham, and when creating a fake ID for her, Fringe Division wanted to keep things as simple as possible.<p>

She stayed back with Peter as Astrid, Lincoln, and the Agent Dunham of this universe walked up to the three men and one woman in hardhats who were waiting at the entrance of the mine.

One of the men broke away from the group to greet them. "You the FBI agents?"

"I am. Agent Olivia Dunham. These are my colleagues, Agent Astrid Farnsworth, Agent Lincoln Lee, and Peter Bishop and Brae Dunham, scientific consultants for the FBI."

The man glanced between the two Dunhams, but didn't comment. "I'm Simon Hsu, the mine's safety regulator. I've never seen anything like this."

He handed them all hardhats equipped with lights and led them into the tunnel.

They walked for several minutes. Mr. Hsu led them through a winding maze of narrow tunnels carved from stone and dirt.

The pictures hadn't prepared them for the eeriness of the damage to the mine: rocks were poking out of rocks at impossible angles, shards of rocks scattered across the floor and sticking out of support beams and walls. Whatever had happened there had struck with terrifying violence.

"They said you specialize in cases like this. Have you ever seen anything like this before?" Hsu asked.

"Yes," Agent Dunham replied. "It's an extremely rare physical phenomenon, like a concentrated earthquake. Scientists don't have a full explanation for it yet." The lie came easily.

"Which is why we appreciate the chance to study it," Peter added.

He and Astrid started setting up various sensors and recording devices around the tunnel.

"Whatever happened here made the tunnel unstable. We've had three cave-ins since it happened. Be careful. If you hear anything or see anything that makes you nervous, head for one of the exits quickly but calmly," Hsu advised.

"Thanks, I'm sure I'll remember that helpful advice when the ceiling starts falling in," Astrid said with mock cheerfulness.

"What exactly are you looking for?" Hsu asked.

"Anything unusual," Peter replied simply.

Agent Dunham and Lincoln started taking pictures of the walls, floor, and ceiling of the tunnel, noting the extent of the damage.

After a few minutes, Peter moved over to Dunham. He spoke quietly. "The background radiation levels in this mine are off. And there's...a vibration, almost at the quantum level, but strong enough to be detectable. I want Walter to take a look at these results, but I think, whatever happened here, it's still happening. This point in the universe is still unstable."

"Let's gather as much as we can and take it back to the lab to analyze. I'm not crazy about being this deep underground. How far down are we?"

"About a quarter of a mile."

"Wow."

Peter went back to taking measurements and she went back to taking photographs.

A smaller tunnel branched off from the main one and dead-ended about twenty meters further on. The damage was less extensive here, but it had obviously been within the radius of the event.

She wasn't sure what signaled her that something was wrong. It was like a change in the light.

She looked behind her, shining the light from her hardhat around the low tunnel. Something was wrong, but she couldn't put her finger on what.

Experimentally, she turned off the lamp.

The wall was glowing.

No, not glowing, _glimmering_.

And it was getting stronger.

The others heard her scream abruptly swallowed up in the thunder of cascading stone.


	18. The Glimpse

Chapter 18: The Glimpse

The rest of your song  
>I'll hear in the Other World<br>Oh, sweet cuckoo bird!

~Anonymous, trans. Toshio G. Tsukahira

Astrid, Lincoln, Peter, Olivia, and Simon Hsu rushed in the direction of the cave-in. They froze at the sight: a pyramid of rubble in the middle of the tunnel, Agent Dunham nowhere in sight.

"Oh no," Lee nearly whimpered. "Oh God no."

Olivia looked over it. She saw the rock, saw its origin, but she didn't see the other Olivia. She wasn't there.

"We need to move this rock out of the way, now!" she shouted.

The two other FBI agents were the first to follow the order. Peter and Hsu joined in hauling the rocks out of the way moments later.

Olivia worked frantically. The others thought Agent Dunham was buried under the rock, but she knew she wasn't.

But would be if they didn't work fast.

* * *

><p>She had seen the cave flicker and vanish around her, felt the universe flow through her, and now she was somewhere else.<p>

She was in a forest. Trees as tall as redwoods towered above her, the canopy lost in dim fog. There was a slight chill, though the air was damp, like a swamp.

It wasn't hard to figure out what happened: she had instinctively escaped the falling rocks by tapping into her innate power to cross universes.

But where was she now? And how could she get back?

Before she could think of an answer, she heard a strange sound in the eerie silence of the mist. Something breathed. Something sniffed. Something big.

She looked over her shoulder, trying to determine which direction the sound was coming from. There was a thump. Heavy. A footstep.

Another.

She held her breath. It was coming closer.

A shadow congealed from out of the fog. It was huge.

She hadn't spent much time in natural history museums, but she was pretty sure she was looking at a Tyrannosaurus rex.

It took a few steps closer, then stopped, looking directly at her. She had the feeling it was evaluating whether she was edible. Or maybe just whether she'd be worth the effort to eat.

Of all the monsters and mysteries she'd encountered in her time with Fringe Division, she had never felt anything like this: she was staring into something ancient, primal, more natural and more pristine than anything she had ever seen. She was nearly paralyzed with a combination of fear and awe.

With a jolting motion, the dinosaur resumed its advance. She didn't move. Already she could feel the pull of the other universe, drawing her back.

The approaching tyrannosaur flickered before her eyes.

And then everything went dark.

"Olivia!" she heard Lincoln gasp in relief before her eyes adjusted to the meager light of the mine. She felt arms wrap tightly around her. Lincoln's and Astrid's, she determined.

"What the hell just happened?" Hsu asked.

Agent Dunham looked around. The narrow tunnel was littered with rocks, but a space had been cleared where she'd reappeared.

"Shall we just say it was an aftershock?" the other Olivia asked sardonically.

Peter had joined Astrid and Lincoln next to Agent Dunham. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes. I'm fine."

"Maybe we should get out of here," Lincoln suggested.

"No, we still have work to do. I'm fine," Agent Dunham argued.

"You should have a doctor check you out," Hsu suggested hesitantly. He was already beginning to question what he'd seen with his own eyes, especially since everyone else seemed to be reacting so casually to a woman disappearing and then reappearing in front of them.

"Later. We still have work to do."

* * *

><p>Olivia sat up in bed in the hotel room she was sharing with Peter. He was still up, his computer and an array of papers spread out in front of him.<p>

She glanced at the clock, blinking until the blurriness of her vision diminished enough for her to read its glowing numbers. "It's almost three a.m.," she noted groggily. "Are you ever coming to bed?"

"There was a ripple," he stated. "As soon as she crossed over to the other universe, there was a ripple of energy in the cave. The instability we measured was spherical. As far as I can tell, perfectly spherical. As soon as she crossed over, a ripple of energy went out from where she was standing to the limits of the sphere, then came back. It smoothed it out. As soon as she reappeared, it was gone, just completely gone."

"What the hell are you talking about?" she asked groggily.

Peter finally looked up at her. "The instability on the quantum level that we picked up when we first got to the mine, as soon as Olivia went to the other universe and back, it completely disappeared. That's the opposite result from every other method we've found to cross universes, which makes that point in the universes less stable. Basically, she created a miniature bridge at that point that stabilized the universes."

"Can this wait until morning?"

Peter shook his head slightly, distractedly. "If I can figure out these readings, Olivia...I think I could reproduce it. I'd need Walter's help, but...I think this might give us a way to safely travel between universes. I think this might give us a way home."

She climbed out of bed, no longer tired.


	19. Inter Alia

Chapter 19: Inter Alia

Carl Sandburg, "Fog"

The fog comes  
>on little cat feet.<p>

It sits looking  
>over harbor and city<br>on silent haunches  
>and then, moves on.<p>

It was a cold morning. Olivia sprinted to the coffee shop and was grateful to enter its warm, aromatic interior.

Her counterpart had already chosen a table, a booth in the far corner, and had two coffees and two danishes on the table.

Olivia took a seat and the untouched danish. "Thank you."

"No problem," Agent Dunham said. "Thanks for meeting me." She handed her a copy of her report on the incident at the mine. "There have been no unusual events in Ontario since we were there. I think Peter may have been right."

"He usually is. How are you doing?"

"Fine. I just wish I knew how I did it."

Olivia laughed. "Yeah. It would be nice if we could just jump universes at will. Then me and Peter would be home by now. But he and Walter have been in the lab since the moment we got back from Canada trying to figure it out. And when they put their minds together..."

"They're dangerous," Agent Dunham stated.

"Definitely," Olivia lifted her cup of coffee in a mock toast of agreement.

Agent Dunham's phone rang. She looked at it, frowning. "Broyles," she explained before answering it. "Dunham...I'll be there in ten." She closed the phone and stood up, grabbing her coffee cup and the last few bites of her danish. "I have to go. Look over those files and let me know if you can think of anything else."

"I will." Olivia opened the report and skimmed through it for a minute. She looked up and watched as Agent Dunham got into her car.

Anyone observing them would have thought they were twins, but they were much closer than twins. Even identical twins didn't have the same fingerprints, but she and this Olivia Dunham shared that, as well as the same name and memories from childhood. But then there paths had diverged. One of them killed their stepfather, one of them had been taken in by Nina Sharp, given a loving home and a life of privilege, while one of them had only shot their stepfather and lived under his shadow through a difficult and often deprived adolescence.

At some point in the few minutes she'd been in the coffee shop, fog had rolled in. It was a thick fog, cold and gray. She watched the dark form of a woman appear from out of the fog. There was something strangely familiar about her.

She stared out the window at the fog, contemplating her sudden feeling of deja vu.

The woman in the long black coat ordered a coffee. Olivia recognized the voice. She turned.

The woman was staring directly at her as she waited for her order, a secretive smile tugging at the corner of her thin lips.

It was the woman whose mysterious appearance in the lab had heralded Olivia finding a way to this universe.

Alia.

Olivia briefly considered what to do: should she call the other Agent Dunham back, or arresting Alia on her own? But on what charge? Trespassing in the lab in an alternate dimension?

Alia held up a finger and mouthed something. As soon as her order was placed on the counter, she took it to Olivia's table, where she sat down like it was perfectly normal for them both to be there.

"Nice to see you again, Miss Dunham."

"I didn't expect to see you here, Alia," Olivia said.

"I could say it was a coincidence, but of course you wouldn't believe me."

There was no one close enough to overhear their conversation, Olivia quickly determined. "How did you get here?" she whispered.

"I walked."

"But where did you come from?"

"We've always been here," she said casually before taking a few sips of coffee.

"You're not one of them, are you? An Observer?"

She scoffed. "Please."

"Why are you here?"

"Why are any of us here?" Alia asked philosophically. "Especially when you think how much easier and simpler it would be for there to be nothing instead of something. Existence is chaos. And then for any individual to exist, when you think about how easy it would be for them to be slightly different or to never have existed at all, is astronomical." She drank some more coffee before continuing. "Every action causes a ripple of effects. That's what makes it impossible to accurately predict the weather more than three days in advance, and the future in any meaningful way. Of course, the flutter of a butterfly's wing won't do a damn thing to affect a hurricane, but a hurricane would sure have a effect on the flutter of a butterfly's wing."

"What's your point?"

"Say your mother had chosen to do her hair differently one morning in college, she wouldn't have had time to stop by the cafe for a danish before class, and never would have met your father. You exist because your mother decided to go with the ponytail instead of the twist."

"I understand the concept," Olivia said. "I've known how the different decisions we make can lead to parallel realities for years now."

"Good. Of course, regardless of the decisions anyone makes, the ultimate fate of the universe remains the same. It ends."

Olivia flinched. "The universe ends?"

"Of course. It can't go on forever, can it?"

It sounded like a rhetorical question.

"But...there are...millions of universes," Olivia said. "So even if this universe ends, there will be another that continues."

"But those will also end. Of course, there are also new ones always coming into existence. But you don't really need to worry about that. This solar system will die long before the universe. The sun will exhaust its fuel supply and burn out. And the way human civilization is going, life on Earth is doomed well before even that."

"You're not much of an optimist," Olivia noted.

"Well are you? Knowing what you know?"

Olivia thought over what Alia had said for a minute, then put down her cup of coffee. "But to survive, all humans would have to do would be to find a new universe to live in, a suitable universe."

"That's true. But you'd have to be really good at traveling between universes to accomplish something like that. And humans have just barely begun to explore that possibility. You, Olivia Dunham, are the best your world has produced so far in that department, and you have to admit you're pretty clumsy at it."

Olivia was struck silent as realization hit her. "That's what Peter's working on now."

Alia smiled. "Let me tell you a story about cause and effect. There was a man, a brilliant scientist, a professor of physics. He was the only child of a very wealthy, influential individual who was himself a scientific genius. Our lives are the result of the decisions we make, but those decisions arise because of the opportunities we are given, which ultimately we have very little influence over. This professor had been given every advantage in life: loving parents, the best schools, the best college. One day, he met a traveler from another dimension. When she told him where she was from, he didn't believe her at first, but he was willing to hear her out because the theoretical physics of alternate dimensions was one of his specialties. She said she had a message for his father. Two scientists from her own world had been watching his for decades. They'd been adapting the superior technology from his dimension to build themselves a very lucrative corporate empire. They'd been studying ways to cross over, but none of them had been safe enough to put into practice. But one of their colleagues had stolen their research and crossed over on his own. He was a dangerous man, now loose in a world that didn't know he existed.

"The traveler from the other dimension had been sent because she had the natural ability to cross over, which the two scientists had been helping her cultivate. She wanted to get a message to the professor's father to warn him about the man who'd stolen their technology. With her help, they tracked down the fugitive, and she was forced to kill him. Then she went back to her own world. The professor, naturally, was intrigued by the proof that alternate universes exist in reality, and he was also intrigued by the beautiful dimension hopper. She returned about a year later, wanting his help on another case. She also just wanted to spend time with him. He studied her, figured out what allowed her to cross, to move in directions unfathomable to the human mind. With the knowledge he gained from these experiments, he discovered a way to travel across dimensions. He designed and, with his father's help and funding, built a machine that allowed him to shift from one universe to another, precisely measuring the quantum distance between universes in order to travel accurately and safely. In that way, he was able to visit her universe. There he met an alternate version of his father, who, it turned out, was one of the scientist who'd built the window to look in on his universe. This man's own son had died as a child, but he'd had much solace in watching another version of his son grow up, and he was overjoyed to meet him in person. The professor and the dimension hopper fell in love, and he divided his time between his world and hers. Eventually, years and years later, everyone in his world learned about alternate dimensions, and when the time came they used giant ships based on the machine he designed to colonize new universes.

"As you may have guessed," Alia concluded, "That man I've been talking about never existed, because when he was a boy and was dying of a congenital disease, his brilliant father failed to find a cure because a strange man in his lab distracted him at just the moment when he would have seen it."

"Peter," Olivia stated. "That's why he was so important. That's why his cure was so important that the Observer was there to witness it. And the traveler...was me?"

Alia looked at her. "He would have been the inventor. You would have been the catalyst. And that would have been the first time that humans had advanced that far in any Earth across all the universes. That wouldn't just have been a significant event for the science of one planet, but the eventual salvation of the human species in the multiverse. If, you know," she shrugged, "that's the kind of thing that concerns you."

Olivia thought for several long moments, then she looked up again. "What are you?"

She smirked. "You didn't expect to get all the answers, did you?" She finished her coffee and stood. "I'll be right back." She tossed her empty coffee cup in the trash and disappeared into the restroom.

Olivia finished her own coffee slowly, thinking about what else to ask Alia. When after five minutes the other woman had still not returned, Olivia stood and slowly approached the restroom door. It was unlocked. She pushed it open.

It was dark inside. She flipped the light switch, and wasn't too shocked to discover it was completely empty, and there was no other way out.

She left the coffee shop. The fog had lifted as quickly as it came.


	20. Tenebit

Author's note: Thank you for reading! This is the final chapter. I know it doesn't answer everything, but... You didn't expect to get all the answers, did you?

Chapter 20: Home

Rumi, trans. Coleman Barks

You're from a country beyond this universe,  
>yet your best guess is<br>you're made of earth and ashes!

You engrave this physical image everywhere  
>as a sign that you've forgotten<br>where you're from!

The machine wasn't much to look at; a bit like an oversized telephone booth with extraneous wires, a large computer extending from the top at an odd angle, and a heavy battery at the base. It was marked off with precise measurements on the floor; in that exact spot in the same lab in another dimension, there was a structure of similar dimensions made of steel and filled with water to the exact weight of this machine plus Peter and Olivia. The way the machine was designed, it would lock on to the mass of the object on the other side and transport it back to this universe as they left it. The exchange of mass, if it worked correctly, would prevent the machine and its occupants from being pulled back to fill the vacuum they left.

"Are you sure that thing will move?" Olivia asked.

"Well, it doesn't have to move very far," Peter explained. "In fact just about a micron. It's just in a direction that we don't have a word for yet."

"I've calibrated the machine to home in on the signal matching the specific vibration emanating from Miss Olivia," Walter said proudly as he removed the electrodes from Olivia's skin. "That should take you back to your universe. And I've sent a message to Walter Prime to let him know you're coming."

Olivia's eyebrows rose. "'Walter Prime'?"

"It's what we're calling the version of myself from your universe. We argued for quite some time over which of us would be Prime. He compromised by suggesting he could be Walter Prime and I could be," he interrupted himself with a chuckle, "Walter Ace."

Olivia smiled.

"And he will of course contact me to let me know you have arrived safely."

Peter looked over the contraption and frowned slightly. "Olivia, maybe I should go over first to test it, make sure it's safe."

"I'm sure it's fine. You built it, and I trust you."

"But still..."

"Besides, if something does happen to you, and we get separated again..." She took his hand. "What would I do then? We're going together. We'll take this risk together."

Agents Dunham, Lee, and Farnsworth were all there to see them off.

"Well," Peter said, "we might as well get this over with." He turned around and addressed Walter. "Thank you for your help. Thank you so much."

The man smiled and shook his hand. "Tell my counterpart that he is a very lucky man to have someone like you as a son."

Peter nodded. He shook hands with the three F.B.I. agents. "Thank you."

"And you," Agent Dunham said. "Your help with our cases has been invaluable."

"It was nice knowing you. Maybe we'll see you again someday," Lincoln said.

Astrid was near tears when she shook his hand, then gave him a hug. "I'll miss you, Peter. Take care of yourself."

Olivia said her goodbyes, then they both turned toward the machine.

"Well, here goes nothing," Peter said.

They stepped inside. Peter bolted the door behind them, then turned to the computer built into the wall. He ran a quick double-check on his calculations, then took a deep breath. "You ready for this?"

She nodded, then wrapped her arms around him. "I love you, Peter."

"I love you, Olivia."

They held each other for a long moment, and then he pressed the enter key.

The machine began to hum, low and slow at first but then louder and faster. Olivia saw a glimmer spread through the metal walls. She heard a clank. And then the glimmer died, as did the humming sound.

"Did it work?" Olivia asked.

"One way to find out." Peter opened the door.

They stepped into a lab identical to the one they just left.

Walter was standing in front of a table, Astrid at a computer console nearby. They were both staring at them.

Astrid's face broke into a smile. "It worked!" she laughed in delight. "Walter, it worked!"

Walter took a couple of slow steps to Peter. "Son?"

Peter breathed. "Dad."

A second later, Walter embraced Peter so tightly he gasped.

Astrid went first to Olivia. "I'm so glad you're back."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't tell you what I was planning."

She glanced at Peter. "I'm just glad it worked."

Olivia looked back at the machine that had brought them both back, and compared it to the machine that had taken him away. This one was smaller and far less sophisticated, but still...

This one was a prototype. The machines had the same designer. It didn't make sense, but she was sure of it. She hadn't told Peter what Alia had told her, or even that she'd seen her. Not yet. Not until she was sure she understood what it all meant.

Peter put his arm around her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she answered, and smiled so brightly he almost believed it. "It's just good to be home."


End file.
